O N E W E E K
Monday
every time I fart the birdies sing, "thank you sir, may i have another?" i don't want to interact. i'm not the life of your party, rather, i'm the drunken plague that causes your bathroom to stink and your cigarettes to disappear. i'm the loudest one laughing at any given moment and the first one to bitch that the keg is dry. i'll squeeze the last drop of beer from an old Rely tampon and throw it in you face. it takes a lot of energy to be a complete asshole, but i'm up for it. and incidentally, if i'm on hard
drugs, i'd appreciate you not mentioning it. if anyone around here can handle their pcp, i can.
sometimes when i'm driving (or not driving) i think how easy it would be to slip into "Falling Down" mode, that Michael Douglas movie where he's the misfit suburbanite who runs amok and kills, kills, kills. a bizarre fantasy i guess, but we who live in LA are hardened somewhat to the reality of everyday death. people are gunned down in the street; some innocent, most not so innocent -- and you know, i'm so jaded that i'm not even freaked out. my exoskeleton is so thick that i can just take it all in and not think twice. don't you think this is bizarre? what does this say about me, and/or us? are we just throwbacks to Ancient Rome? like, is there something wrong with me watching all eight episodes of "Faces of Death" back to back? i rationalize that i'm not a weirdo by fast forwarding past the autopsy footage straight to the car wrecks. i admit it, i love violence -- but i'm not the only one. at my corner liquor store, they sell these Mexican gore magazines:
murders, heads cut off, shit so grisly that i can't even look at it. but any six-year-old could. but tits are bad, violence is good, it seems.
the more i think about our society's twisted set of morals, the more i want to join up with the chimps. i think porno is lame. if some guy wants to get off looking at women with giant fake tits, who cares? i mean, they feel like upholstery, they don't hang right and there's an artificial space between them that the Exxon Valdez could sail through. and i'm not even going to get into their collagen lips, collagen hips, or collagen labias. Playboy presents their new summer calendar, "the Girls of Gore-Tex."
back to violence. violence titillates, it excites, it takes us back to our ancestors who settled their disputes by drawing and quartering. so why not public executions?
public hangings in the village square. an occasional beheading. burn a Wicker man on the summer solstice, i say. why not? it's obviously what people want.
let's do a pay-per view gassing of John Wayne Gacy dressed in his clown suit.
this could really bring the family back together. now is that any worse than anything you'd see on the tv or the movies? no difference. gore is gore. fake blood stimulates the same neurons as real. that same moral authority that says we can't see nipple is just getting around to admitting that cigarettes MAY be harmful. if Lee Harvey Oswald had smoked, maybe none of this would have ever happened. no butts were ever found on the grassy knoll, and that's a damn shame.
Tuesday
i feel like the kid walking through the mall stoned out of his mind, who thinks the whole place is looking at him. i feel like i'm in line at the supermarket with my
pockets full of Heath bars and security is just choosing the right moment to announce over the loudspeaker, "Thief in Aisle 12." i feel like i've just been pulled over and
i've only had ONE beer but i know i'm gonna blow it. i feel like that speed i just snorted is going to kill me. maybe i picked a bad time to read Poe's "Tell-tale Heart"
because mine feels like it's going to leap our of my chest. my arms are tingling.
this is just imagination, imagination . . . i'll get through this. alright, i shall WILL my heart to slow down. if Indian Yogis can do it, i can do it. slow down, slow down, slow
down, slow down, slow . . . IT'S NOT WORKING! . . . I'M FREAKING OUT. I'M HAVING A HEART ATTACK. A FUCKING GRAND-MAL SEIZE-O-RAMA. i can call out to any God that will hear me: HINDU, VISHNU, BOB . . . CAN YOU HEAR ME? I SWEAR I'LL NEVER DO SPEED AGAIN. i'm fucking stupid. i'm a fucking idiot. i don't wanna die like this . . . . . wait . . thank God (or Bob) . . i'm
chillin' . . . feel better . . . pulse approaching normal . . . ok . . arms and kegs coated in dick sweat -- better shower later -- might trigger a relapse . . . ok . . . ok. fuck, WHEW, close one. now, where was i? oh yeah, i'd like to think i'm a complex individual. like a rubix cube. but i'm
beginning to think that everything good that ever happened to me was just a collision between sheer pig-headedness and blind luck. if you quit, you'll never achieve. then again, you just might NEVER achieve. i'm hoping that our whole economic system will come crashing down and that somehow boogers will take the place of money, 'cause then i'll be a rich man. i'm searching for the Holy Grail at the bottom of a jug. i'm the patron saint of lost causes, most notably my own. i'm simultaneously miserable and optimistic, cautious and stupid, old and young. i'm very suspicious of authority. i think there are aliens at Area 51. i think the CIA, the mafia, and the aliens are all conspiring to keep ME from getting a record deal. i think the mafia buried Jimmy Hoffa in the basement of the Luxor and that their quiche is made with Egg Beaters. i think Juan Valdez is the head of the mysterious Illuminati, dedicated to keeping me enslaved to the coffee bean. i'm hooked on phonics, hooked on life, hooked on coffee and doughnut gems.
Wednesday
i live in what is euphemistically called the art district. "art for artists." actually, we're just an odd assortment of junkies, flunkies, and musical masochists who don't know when to give up. the difference between me and a real artist is that a real artist thinks he's good. sometimes i wonder what van gogh had to go through. i wonder if mrs. van gogh had to strip at crazy girls to pay the bills so van gogh could fuck around. part of the allure of being unemployed is that, if you really wanted to, you could completely hit rock bottom. i could stir fry my brain in a saucerful of shit and no one would care. i could do things that would make caligula blush. FUCK IT - FUCK ALL JOBS! takes a real man to make it without
workin'. what's the worst job on earth? garbage collector? theater usher? male hooker? the worst job on earth has got to be the parking enforcement officer, those weasally little fuckers in the white compact cars who write tickets all the live long day. every day striving to beat their misery quota.
everyday universally hated and despised. and every night when their little ticket books are empty and their shit is through, they crowd into dark little bars like blind termites and commiserate about the day's butchery, like torturers during the Inquisition. "Well it took some time, but we finally disemboweled old hank, he was a sinewy little fuck." i know i sound vindictive; i'm probably still fuming over the $60 ticket that i got for parking across the street from my own house.
Thursday
we have mice. that is to say, my co-roommates are rodentia. i wouldn't mind so much if they didn't always have their eyes on MY pastries. i bought some "glue"
traps the other day on the premise that these were more humane than the neck-breakers. quite the opposite. turns out these fiendish little glue trays trap and slowly starve their victims to death. rid your house of unwanted pests, from your friends at
jo mengele & co. magical, magical trays. you just lay them down in the corner of your room and two hours later, you've got yourself a mouse. but
then i had to deal with the problem of mouse disposal. i threw away the first few traps like the box says, it actually shows a picture of a hand throwing the mouse into the trash, but a trash can full of squealing mice gurgling and soiling themselves can be a burden on your conscience. i hit upon a simpler plan -- why not lay them out in the middle of the road and let the big rigs crush them? quick and easy. sometimes i'd get lucky and the mouse would stick to the truck tire and travel down the road a bit. as it was, the front part of my house was looking like Verdun. maybe next time, i'll just put on a Third Eye Blind tape; that always scares me away.
yeah, i'm the pie-eyed piper of boyle heights. how would you like to live in a city called
boyle? i know it's spelled different, but WE all know it as the city of BOIL.
the city of pus. and not even good pus -- not that cream of wheat stuff. it's dirty brown pus; skid row pus. i live in the penthouse suite at the carbuncle towers in the
lovely city of BOIL, U.S.A.
Friday
we're all going to die, you know that don't you? one of these days, probably during friday rush hour, there's going to be a 9.9 arse-rumbler and then it's all going to come down. no more taco bells, no more sav-on, no more little oompah-loompahs making chocolate for willy wonka. it'll all be over. at first i thought that this would be kinda cool. you know, puts me on an even footing with the BMW's and the cool people. when society breaks down, the scum bags will inherit the earth -- survival of the thickest. just think: people freak out when their toilet doesn't flush right. what's gonna happen when arby's runs out of
"cheez"? maximum anarchy. anyone who lived through the LA riots knows what i mean. back in '92, we were all appalled at the looting and burning but we could all console ourselves that in a couple days it would be OVER. no such luck come doomsday. and no one, including myself, has made any provisions or taken any precautions to prepare for this apocalypso. when it does hit, it's gonna be like a sudden beer shit out of nowhere; you'd drop your pants in the middle of a mall if
you had to. i want to move out of LA, but i won't. i'm nostradamus the poseur. i'm like everybody else who knows his cavities are getting worse but refuses to go to the dentist. when the BIG one happens, i'll be fucked like everyone else. i'll have to recycle my feces to power my car. and drink my own piss as sun tea. it will be
a real horror show living day to day. no more kurt russels, no mtv, no more fear of aids. in other words, normal.
Saturday
another day in paradise. it's hot. i can't afford air conditioning. i have one little fan blowing hot air into my hot little room from the outside. unfortunately for me, there's a chemical textile plant downstairs and the fumes blow right into my room. monday through friday from 8:00-4:00, i'm on a psychedelic teflon high.
on certain days, i can see through time, baby. i've thought bout reporting this health hazard to the authorities but it just so happens the guy downstairs is my landlord (and indirectly, my pusher). the other day he asked me if i wouldn't mind paying a $300 security deposit on my one room apartment. i guess he's afraid i'll fuck the place up. throw wild parties. maybe i'll set up a meth lab or open up a shooting gallery. yeah, i'll stuff the place full of junkies and charge by the square foot. now if x = 1 foot and my home is 200 square feet, how many junkies could i squeeze in my room before they freak out? x = 200. 200 junkies. i couldn't fit 200 of them nodded out, of course. that would take up space. i'll have to hang them from the ceiling by some means,
harnesses or old bed sheets . . .
or maybe i'll start a meth lab. there used to be a big one across the street but it got popped, maybe you saw it on tv. well, he was greedy. i'll start small and work my way up. but wait -- how am i going to afford all the precursor chemicals i need? acetone, hydrochloric acid, all those tubes and wires. hmmmmm . . . i guess i can cut coffee out of my diet. i won't need it anymore; i'll be high on
meth. and i won't need pastries either. no appetite. this may seem an inconsequential sacrifice to you but my pastry bill is ENORMOUS. probably equals the GNP of several small african nations. oh . . . but you know how i get on speed. sweaty, irregular heart beat, pupils dilated, slightly paranoid, dressed up like Nosferatu . . . on second thought, the meth lab idea is also not happening.
the whole reason this came up in the first place is because my landlord wants a $300 security deposit. pretty cheeky, you ask me. my room has no ceiling, no bathroom wall (just bare pipes), no carpet, no locking downstairs door, no security parking, no kitchen, a toilet that can take about a half a log before it backs up, cockroaches the size of my index finger, rats, leaky roof, hobos, gangs, a produce market next door that starts screaming spanish obscenities at 4:00 a.m., and union fucking Carbide's Bopahl branch office downstairs. i can see why he wants a $300 deposit; you just can't find places this choice anymore. a guy would have to be out of his mind to wanna leave this place. if you can't tell, i'm being SARCASTIC.
Sunday
my neighborhood isn't all bad. the central library is cool. cool as in air-conditioned. i'll go there some- times during really hot spells and relax in their extra comfy chairs. do you know the library actually has tour groups going through? like it was Disneyland or something. "now if you'll follow me, boys and girls, our next stop